morrowlife

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Four finding perhaps the biggest geocache container we’ve ever gotten. Good job, LRN4! Part of my famous Camping series.

Wonders of Blogger today. First time I’ve had to do that in quite a while. I’m blaming the Apple TV.

Yes, it arrived yesterday. Very cool. It’s not perfect – can’t stream BYU TV yet, as far as I can tell, but I’ll bet that will come. I think individuals can contribute to that project – maybe I’ll do that. I got Boxee installed almost immediately and it works perfectly too. We can watch any of those gazillions of TV shows whenever we want! Yipee. I also set up Pandora on it, which works nicely. Lots of Appley goodness there.

The cheese factory tour was fun. We went to what turns out to be the biggest cheese factory in the world. There were eight of us – four yoots and four parents. They showed us how to make cheese by having us make our own. It was surprisingly easy. I’ve been paying way too much for cheese. Amusingly, they started out our tour by having an HR person show us the company’s recruiting video. Cue music: “Be . . . all that you can be, ’cause we need you . . . in the cheeeeese factory!”

Had some friends over for a small group dinner in the evening. Two couples came. We had a nice time, but were dreading going back to the church for the dessert portion. Last time, it was so noisy you couldn’t hear yourself think, which kind of put a damper on the whole thing. This time the noise was much better controlled, so we could at least hear each other. We played a game, ate, and went home, having enjoyed it.

Not much else to talk about. Day one of my ten-day vacation is at a close. Nine more to go. So far, so good.

Reminder for next week – blogging unlikely. Comment! See you a week from Monday.

Here’s Loyal Reader Number Two, sitting on the dock of the bay. Well, standing on the dock of the river, anyway. Part of my famous Camping series.

No April Fools’ Day post. Thanks to Anon for noticing. I had to work for a couple hours after I got home and then there was the new TV to set up. Which seems to be working fine – played video through it from a DVD player and it looks and even sounds great. I’m especially gratified about the sound – flat panel TVs have a nasty reputation for their sound quality. The TV even has a good number of inputs, including two HDMI ports, composite video, and even coax cable. Very good.

Slightly sad news though – the FedEx guy showed up today with the Apple TV, and both Loyal Readers were in the shower. Sigh. We have to wait until tomorrow now. Double sigh.

But nothing can bring me down too much this evening – it’s vacation time! I’m off for ten whole days. We’re camping for six of them, as previously discussed.

The rest of the days will be the busy ones. We have our cheese factory tour tomorrow mid-day and then a few couples over for dinner in the evening. Plus, I’ll be installing the Apple TV and playing around with it, of course.

Saturday, Loyal Readers Numbers Three, Five, Six, Twelve, and Fifteen are coming over for the day. That’s right, LRN3 and LRN15 are in town for a few days for LRN15’s birthday, which is today.

Speaking of which, Happy Birthday, LRN15! We’re happier than you’ll probably ever know that you’re a member of our family. Especially since it was by choice! You join Loyal Readers Numbers Four and Six in that distinction. What were you all thinking?

Anyway. Saturday is also General Conference. We probably won’t get to see much because of the visit, but we can easily go back and see the missing sessions on BYU-TV.

Sunday will be the rest of General Conference and a Stake leadership training session in the evening.

Then we’re off on Monday morning for six days of fun and frolic, followed by Easter at home with LRN5, LRN6, LRN12, and my brother Chris with his Special friend and her two children.

Busy.

We don’t have many plans for the campout. I hope to geocache a time or two. Might bring the RC helicopter again. Its battery is pretty short-lived, but it’s fun to fly for the minute or two you get at a time.

I hope to do a bunch of reading, hiking, and napping too. Emphasis on the reading and napping.

LRN2 went to the doctor’s office today and was given antibiotics. We hope they do the trick Real Soon Now. And LRN4 and I hope he keeps it to himself.

No food violence today, but I do have a Very Special Morrowlife Controversy: How do my Loyal Readers feel about this? My answer: No answer. Do you think I’m crazy or something?

Important Morrowlife Disclosure: If my Loyal Readers ever wonder why I stay out of the cleaning supplies, it’s just that I’m trying to save my marriage.

Official Morrowlife warning: blogging is highly unlikely next week. The probability of wifi being available in the park is very low. I’ll try to get something lame (as usual) posted from the exclusive Treo if at all possible. Otherwise, feel free to keep things going in the comments and await anxiously for my return. I’ll be here tomorrow, though, so Cold Turkey doesn’t start for a while.

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a great big box that was at the entrance to the camping loop at Dos Reis. No traffic lights. No flashing lights. No traffic control of any kind. Just a big box. Part of my famous Camping series.

Okay weekend. The Saturday trip to Great America was fun, and the weather cannot be described as anything but ideal. I’m glad we went. As soon as we got home, I threw on a suit and went immediately to the Young Women dinner and broadcast. Got home pretty late.

Sunday was pretty much as usual, although I didn’t get together with the Branch. Did Girls Camp work instead. There’s a bunch more to do.

Also found some time Sunday to put Ubuntu on Shemp and get him set up in the family room. Had a couple of disappointments, though: the Linux version of Boxee doesn’t have Hulu access like the latest Mac version does, and I can’t seem to make the machine play a DVD. Sigh.

I think I’ll put Windows back on and try to be as happy as possible until a better solution comes along. Which will probably be AppleTV, the only solution I’ve seen so far that Just Works.

Anyway. Loyal Reader Number One and I are working on plans to build an autonomous vehicle this summer, based on LRN1’s RC truck. Seems doable. We’re pretty excited about it.

Loyal Reader Number Two is feeling under the weather today. Best wishes for a quick recovery, LRN2! And don’t heal like your sister, who is still sick a month later. Yikes.

Let’s have a look at the world of food violence, shall we? If ever there was something not worth shooting over, it’s this. Today’s controversy: Do my Loyal Readers think it’s worse than this? My answer: The shooting was more dangerous, but the tackling actually hurt someone. In any case, they ought to be settling these disputes peacefully.

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a great Historic Recreational Vehicle. It was right across the street from us during our recent Dos Reis trip. Quite a piece of work, no? The people had Colorado license plates on their truck. Although I didn’t see the plate on the Holidaire, we can assume it also came from Colorado. I have no idea how it got here. It definitely needs to go up on the HRVA website. I didn’t speak with the owners for the Holidaire’s vital statistics. They were kind of odd. And kind of scary. Part of my famous Camping series.

Sleepy day today. I was up until about 1:00 this morning working on Larry. My stuff arrived via UPS sometime yesterday. I got the memory installed into Joe pretty quickly. It didn’t make him run any better, but it will definitely improve things once I get the machine’s instability resolved.

Larry was a little more difficult. I got the new drive installed with no problem, but everything I fixed seemed to mess up two other things. Two major problems surfaced – I loosened a couple of connectors up and lost my H.264 codec. The connectors were easy to fix, but the codec was quite hard. Took quite a bit of research and a bunch of trial and error. But it’s fixed.

As a special bonus, I discovered that the codec fix for Larry is exactly what I needed to fix Joe’s video problem. Well, one of them, anyway.

Anyway. Work was otherwise normal. My boss is expecting to be out next week. His father-in-law is dying, it appears. He and his wife both lost their mothers last year, so this is especially difficult for them.

Let’s have a look at today’s food violence news: While not exactly mano-a-mano violence, this still has a chilling effect on the entire snack food industry. When I think of what those snack cakes went through, I can’t help getting just a little emotional. They probably had no seat belts and airbags, to boot. Oh, the humanity! Or the snack-cakery. Or something.

I need sleep. See you tomorrow.

Here’s the river at Dos Reis. Keep it slow, folks. Part of my famous Camping series.

Another normal day. My intention was to attend the branch’s Elders Quorum presidency meeting this afternoon. Sadly, a late meeting was scheduled at work, and my attendance was required. Hence, no presidency meeting. Went home on the late train instead.

On the positive side, I got a lot of work done.

Loyal Reader Number One reports he still hasn’t heard from Apple, either on the application or the internship front. Maybe tomorrow.

As I write this on the train, I don’t yet know whether my new SATA cables and other Newegg stuff have arrived at home today. The UPS people said it ought to be here by now. I’m looking forward to trying out the Lightscribe feature.

Otherwise, situation normal.

There’s some encouraging Space Toilet news! I definitely think they should follow through with their plans. Someday, I hope to have a famous toilet named after me.

Speaking of famous people, Loyal Reader Number Five has nominated Loyal Reader Number Three as Village Idiot in the English town I’m planning to buy. I would of course censure LRN5 for her impertinence, but I think LRN3 might actually want the job. So I’m just keeping quiet about it.

Other job applications?

See you tomorrow.